


Back Together, Back to Me

by navaan



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Ficlet, POV Female Character, Post Regeneration, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:24:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13298676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: The new Doctor makes her way back to her Tardis.





	Back Together, Back to Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trobadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/gifts).



The Doctor feels the call of her Tardis. It's the hum of a familiar friend, of a part of herself that has been missing. She'd been stuck since the regeneration disaster and then for the moment the post-regeneration chaos was enough to distract her from the gap in her that had hindered the full forming of her new-new self. But it's been the Doctor and the Tardis, the Tardis and the Doctor, for so long that the Doctor without Tardis is just not whole. She knows the Tardis feels the gap too and comes for her Doctor when she can, guided by a will of her own. The Doctor thinks that there's a reason why Time Lords are supposed to only travel in ever changing newly assigned Tardises. A Tardis is more than just ship or machine. They form attachments if you let them. The attachment goes both ways. The Doctor stole a Tardis who stole a Time Lord – and they belong now.

Together.

She belongs.

The moment she sees the blue outline of the out of place police box, she starts walking towards it with a spring in her step. And for once, she's not in a hurry. _Not_ running. She's coming home. She's going to be whole again. _They_ are going to be whole again. They're going to learn how to be the god old Tardis and the new-new Doctor again.

And right now the only thing that matters is that she's back, that the Tardis came back or the Doctor has found her; the details of it don't matter as much as the finding, the reunion. It all bleeds together into one, because where's the difference? The Tardis is here!

In anticipation of the Tardis' welcoming of her with a soft humming that is as melodic as the music of the spheres, that is to her space and time wrapped into possibility and sound, that is a way of life as much as a welcome, she snaps her fingers and the doors open to he. Because she's still the Doctor and this is still her Tardis.

The warm glow of the interior embraces her even before she's stepped into the bigger-than-outside inside and for a contented moment she sighs and lets it embrace her. “Brilliant,” she says to the half darkness of the console. 

“Indeed,” a slightly haughty female voice says and as she turns she sees the Master – Mistress... Missy..., no, _Master_ \- sit with her legs propped up, beside the console in the Doctor's entirely unnecessary driver's seat. Time and knowledge and possibilities shift and dance and the Doctor frowns, before it all settles into one clear view of what's now. “You didn't regenerate?” she asks.

“I didn't _die_ Doctor, dear. Regeneration happens after dying. You should know.” Missy raises an eyebrow and looks her over, measuring.

 _Ah_ , she thinks. _I really should have been smart enough to see that. Maybe I was and have forgotten._ In the jumbled mess of rearranged personality that comes with recent regeneration, memories are still sorting itself.

“I needed a way out of the sentence and that box you were keeping me in. And my terribly, terribly dramatic self... He really thought he was so clever, didn't he? Thought I wouldn't know and couldn't set up precautions. We were all so young and crazy at some point in our lives. It's a little pathetic, isn't it? Can you remember being that young and crazy?”

The Doctor sighs. So often has she spoken to this version of the Master in their past years, stuck on earth together, that this too is a relief. Another part of ever-true Doctor that's reintegrating itself into newly-formed Doctor.

With a small hum of agreement she touches the edge of the console and can feel the joyful signing of the Tardis. 

“No thank you?” Missy asks. "I brought back your run away time machine."

She lets her tongue glide along her teeth. She's still learning the feel of this body.

Is she a grateful Doctor? She doesn't know yet.

The Tardis seems to be chuckling in her head. _My thief_ , she thinks at the Doctor like the chime of bells and the Doctor embraces it.

“Did she steal you to get back here?” she asks of the Master.

Missy's face blanches, grows concentrated and then neutral. “Childish,” she admonishes and rolls her eyes. “Nothing else is new then.” 

The Doctor smiles, her hand already typing in coordinates. “I'll let her keep you for as long as she wants,” she says and doesn't say, _because no companion is around to remind me of who the Doctor is. I hope you stay with me for now._

It doesn't matter.

The Tardis is back.

They are whole.

They are home in the Vortex.

And Missy is laughing at them as if she doesn't know exactly what the Doctor is thinking.


End file.
